E2K3 SP2 Database Size Improvements Not Working?

Steve, one of the members on the Sunbelt Exchange list, recently posted that he'd made use of the E2K3 SP2 database size improvements and set the registry entry to allow his database to grow to a custom database size of 40GB. However, he'd noticed that event ID 1216 still showed the database limited to 16GB. The store had been dismounted and remounted after the application of the registry key, something that is required to happen for the changes to take effect.

I suggested that he should take a look at the version information of the file exsetdata.dll, found in the \exchsrvr\bin folder. True enough, this file was reporting 6.5.6944.4, which as you'll see from KB 158530 is the RTM version of Exchange 2003. SP2 was re-applied, resulting in an exsetdata.dll version of 6.5.7638.2. The final result was the event log now showing a configured database size of 40GB.

The moral of the story is that if features of a new service pack aren't working correctly, examining the version information of exsetdata.dll is a good way to determine if a service pack has been successfully applied or not.